Worth It
by Griselda Banks
Summary: Oneshot. "Who did this to you?" "It was totally worth it." And once again, Ed proves how overly protective he is of his brother. Obviously not yaoi.


**Author's Note: This is just a sudden plotbunny I had to write after seeing the picture I used for cover art: bloodchipcookie dot deviantart dot com / art / Was-totally-worth-it-Remake-308002527. Everyone else was coming up with ideas for what might have happened, but none of them were anything like what I envisioned!**

It was odd to go looking for his brother. Usually it was the other way around. Alphonse was used to running off himself, then waiting by the river until Edward would inevitably come to find him. But after walking along the bank for several minutes, Al realized he wasn't going to find his brother here. This was his own special spot, not his brother's. His brother didn't _have_ a special place to go.

So he sighed and trudged back up the incline to head towards town. Ed had started down the winding dirt road around mid-morning, claiming he needed to pick up his new shoes from the cobbler's, the special ones that had extra-strong soles his automail foot wouldn't wear out as fast as those machine-made ones. Winry had told him not to worry, that he'd probably dropped by the bookstore and become engrossed in a new shipment and forgotten the time.

But they'd only been in Risenpool for six months, and Al still found himself becoming restless when his brother was gone for too long. He still had the occasional nightmare of Father shambling towards Ed, which always ended with the realization that he couldn't move, couldn't clap, couldn't do a single thing to help his brother.

Ed would laugh at him for worrying, he knew. _What did you think would happen, silly?_ he would laugh, ruffling his little brother's hair. _This is _Risenpool,_ Al. Nothing _ever_ happens here._ Of course, he would neglect to mention that things _had_ happened here, things they could never forget, things that had ultimately affected the entire country. But Al just wanted to make sure. Having his brother laugh at him would be a relief, because he would much rather be paranoid and stupid than to keep waiting and then come across his brother's cold body in some field.

When Al reached the road, he glanced over at the picnic area at the foot of the hill the Rockbells lived on, and froze. At first all he could do was blink, but then he hurried towards the table nearest the big oak tree. "Brother!"

His eyes flew open in shock when Ed, who had been leaning over with his elbows on his knees and one hand over his face, straightened up. Blood trickled from his nose and torn lip, and his left eye was so black it had swollen almost completely shut. "Hey, Al," he said nonchalantly.

For a moment or two, Al could only gape at him. Then he pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and tried to wipe away some of the blood smeared across his brother's face – and his right hand, too, which he now saw also sported bruised and scraped knuckles. "What happened?" he demanded, giving up on removing the blood when he didn't even have any water, and let Ed take the handkerchief to stop the steady flow of blood from his nose. "Who did this to you?"

His brother didn't say a word, but slowly his blank expression gave way to a satisfied smirk. "It was totally worth it."

Al groaned and put a hand on his brother's head. "So they gave you a concussion too. Just so long as your brains aren't _permanently_ addled."

Ed snorted, then paused to sop up the mess before attempting to speak again. "I just got into a fight, that's all. You've seen me worse than this."

Forcibly pushing aside the dozens of memories of Ed being mutilated and bloodied before his eyes, Al sat down irritably next to him. "Why on earth did you get into a fight? I thought we were past all that." He'd been headstrong and volatile all his life, but Al had thought that the normal life they were creating here with the Rockbells had mellowed him out a little. Apparently he'd been mistaken.

Ed shrugged, looking awkwardly away, speaking thickly through the bloody handkerchief. "I just stopped in at the tavern to say hi, y'know. Couple guys were drunk and got pushy and started sayin' stuff."

Wearily, Al rested his chin in one hand. "Let me guess: They called you short."

Immediately, Ed whipped away the handkerchief and snapped, "I'm taller than Winry, okay? They just heard me talking about you and started saying that the only reason you were so scrawny was because I'd been starving you for the past five years. So I gave them a talking-to with my fists."

"You got in a fight for _that?_" He'd been expecting at least a rude comment about Winry or something. Ed had always gotten uptight about petty things, but...well, this one took the cake for sure. "But..._why?_"

"Because..." Ed gingerly felt his nose, and when no new blood appeared on his fingers, he wadded up the bloody cloth in his fist and sighed. "Because it's true."

Al gazed at the back of his brother's head, at the disheveled ponytail straggling hairs all over and almost covering the edge of the scar at his right shoulder, where flesh met flesh once again. It took him back to the first time he looked up at his brother after the numbing stillness of the Truth. Ed's hair had been rumpled, his clothes dirty, blood drying in crusted trails all over his face, but he'd been beaming despite all that. Al remembered looking down at his own body and marveling, overjoyed at being able to experience the physical world again, but also dismayed at how he was hardly more than a skeleton sheathed in skin.

Winry's project over the past several months had been fattening him up, and it was working, but he was still skinny, and everyone who had seen him hobble off the train at Risenpool Station had seen how gaunt he was at first, how his cheekbones stuck out and his clothes hung off him. He'd never thought about it before, because their primary concern had been getting back to the Rockbells, but he realized that the townsfolk must have wondered what had happened to him.

"Do you know how stupid you are?" He tugged his brother's ponytail and got to his feet. "You didn't starve me just because the Truth took my body."

Ed looked even more pathetic from the front as he looked up glumly. "It's because of me you had to go there in the first place, and it's because of me you had to stay there for so long."

Al tugged on his brother's arm to make him stand. "And you kept me alive. You always seem to forget that part. You ate and slept enough to keep both of us alive for all that time. Without you, I wouldn't even be here."

Still frowning, Ed protested, "But I still-"

"No. I put my hands on that circle. I made my own decision. And you pulled me back when I was lost. So don't go starting any more fights about me starving, because that doesn't even matter anymore."

For a long minute, their eyes locked in stubborn battle. But eventually, Ed relented, as he always did. He raised his hand as though about to ruffle Al's hair, but seemed to think better of it when he saw the blood, so he looped his arm around Al's shoulders instead. "Okay," was all he said. "Let's go home; all this talk about starving is making me hungry!"


End file.
